Prebuttered, toasted golden brown in toaster oven, moderate cream cheese.
If feeling decadent, I use Brie instead of cream cheese.
Lightly toasted for me, with the barest hint of browning. Sometimes I accidentally set the toaster too high (for blackened English muffins) and it’s a disaster. 
Toppings: usually margarine only, or cream cheese if it hasn’t started growing mold. Occasionally I’ll break free of the “starving bachelor” routine and cook up a fried egg w/cheese, slathered with mayo instead of other condiments (kinda like an Egg McBagel, if they still sold those.)
Thin layer of cream cheese? Hubby has never bought a bagel from Brueggers or any number of other places, has he? They practically fire-hose the stuff on.
The OP probably toasts her bagels darker than I would like, but so does my wife, and I don’t look at her funny. 1/4 inch might be a bit on the heavy side, but if the husband is complaining, he probably doesn’t put enough on.
I don’t toast bagels fresh from the store, but we freeze extras, and toast those. Since they’re pre-sliced, I can mix-and-match bagel halves, and often have three halves for breakfast. 
When I was in college, the local bagel store put so much cream cheese on, you could buy a second plain bagel, and have enough cream cheese for both.
The only time you put just a thin layer of cream cheese is when you open the fridge and realize you only have a tiny bit left and forgot to buy more. So you use what you have and then cover it with raspberry jam.
When I buy a bagel with cream cheese from a local bakery/cafe I eat it like a sandwich, but at home, I tend to eat them separately. I don’t think I realized I did this until thinking about it now.
Toasted good and brown, an almost obscene amount of cream cheese, and lox or even better apricot preserves.
I hesitate to say anyone is wrong or right. Perhaps a pole thread is in order? And if, in your household, the loser has to nibble cream cheese off of the winner… well then I can’t honestly see anyone losing that bet. 
If I am buying from a true bagel place in New York, a non-toasted Everything with a schmeer of olive cream cheese, eaten like a sandwich because that’s how they give it.
Up here, grocery store bagels get toasted and each half gets a generous (yeah, 1/4" is about right) layer of onion and chive cream cheese over it, and the halves are eaten separately, open-face.
Your husband has no business criticising for you liking things different than he does, regardless of whether anyone else in the world likes it your way or not. Sorry, but he sounds like a giant ass.
Personally, I like bagels toasted, untoasted, whatever. My favorite: Pumpernickel bagel -toasted, with onion cream cheese and lots of it.
After lightly toasting a jalapeno bagel, broil it in a toaster oven for about 2-3 minutes with pepperoni slices lying on top, so that the pepperoni cooks and the oil permeates the bagel.
Remove the pepperoni, apply a thick spread of cream cheese, and then put the pepperoni back on top. Consume.
You’re welcome.
You get one of those big blocks of cream cheese with a square cross section, maybe 4 or 5 pounds in the block. Slice off a square block of cream cheese about 1/2 inch thick and stick it between two bagel halves. That’s a reasonable amount of cream cheese. You still need lox to make it worth eating, and if it’s a real bagel and fresh you’d never put it in the toaster.
Well, speaking of sandwich wise, three times in the last month I’ve gone into Brueggers and ordered a bagel (Asiago Parmesan usually) with egg, cheese (pepperjack or provolone) and turkey breast. Pretty good breakfast sandwich.
I don’t think a thread about poles is going to generate much interest.
Lots of folks here, including the author, seem to side on the “schmear” not piles of cream cheese front, just for the record. Here’s Ed Levine’s 2003 NYTimes column on it:
So, while I don’t really care one way or another–I’m not a New Yorker; I’ll stick to opinions about ketchup and hot dogs–it doesn’t seem your husband is crazy for proclaiming that a thin layer of cream cheese is perhaps the more accepted practice.
Sorry. Forgot a terminal quote in the first URL. Here is the beginning of the post as meant:
Ed Levine is right, you don’t need six ounces of cream cheese on a bagel, four or five ounces is sufficient.
Toast the hell out of it cream cheese on one half and butter on the other half, a metric fuckton of each.
I think Levine wrote that article because several ounces actually is the accepted practice, and he doesn’t like it. Every time I’ve been to NY, or delis that mimic NY style bagels, I’ve received more than just a shmear.
I don’t add salt to very many things but after I toast my bagel and put a little butter on it followed by a thick coat of cream cheese I sprinkle it lightly with salt. I eat at least one (both sides) usually two.
Yes, I think you’re right. It seems the piles of cream cheese is more the actual practice, given the comments complaining about how much they use at Murray’s.